HOK
is a worldwide design, structure, engineering and planning agency. The firm’s
human-centered design strategy prioritizes well being and wellbeing — serving to folks
thrive bodily, mentally and socially within the constructed setting. HOK ensures
sustainable materials choice on all inside initiatives, whether or not pursuing
certification or not. This simplified framework — which addresses embodied
carbon,
green
chemistry
and sustainable sourcing — is one more instance of the agency’s dedication to
lead on sustainable design.

Shaw‘s Tim
Conway, VP of
sustainability — industrial division, not too long ago spoke with HOK’s Christine
Vandover, sustainable
design chief and senior mission inside designer; and senior sustainable
design specialist Elizabeth
Baxter concerning the agency’s
dedication to sustainability and enhancing the human expertise by
considerate design. The agency goals for a zero-emissions portfolio by 2030 — a aim
pushed by an expanded definition of sustainability. This contains not only a
give attention to lowering constructing emissions, but in addition contemplating the environmental
impact of construction
materials
and the health of building
occupants.
To additional this mission, HOK not too long ago launched a regenerative design
studio
to discover how buildings might be internet constructive for the setting.

TC: Can you share just a little bit about HOK, and the agency’s efforts associated to folks and the planet?

CV: As designers of the constructed setting, it’s our accountability to create
areas that enhance the human expertise and the world we dwell in. HOK has lengthy
been a frontrunner on this entrance. Our Guidebook to Sustainable Design, printed
in 2000, was one of many trade’s first references for “green” design and
development. A couple of years later, HOK was one of many first signatories to the
American Institute Architects’ 2030
Challenge to
remove greenhouse fuel emissions from new buildings. Today, we’re proud to
report that we’re on observe to attaining a zero-emissions portfolio by — or
earlier than — 2030.

At the identical time, we now have expanded our definition of sustainability. While early
efforts targeted on constructing emissions, we now take a extra holistic view of
sustainability. We are wanting on the environmental prices of constructing supplies
and structural techniques (together with embodied carbon and end-of-life disposal) as
effectively as how off-gases and contaminants from supplies affect the well being and
wellbeing of constructing occupants. We are proud to be working with the
International Interior Design Association (IIDA) to
implement new sustainability language into its code of ethics that encourages
designers to deal with the wellbeing of constructing occupants and assist them make
higher well being selections and stay energetic.

[Our] regenerative design
studio
takes sustainability even additional. We are partnering with leaders in science and
expertise to analysis and take a look at how buildings can be a net positive for
nature
by restoring the Earth by the manufacturing of unpolluted power, turning
wastewater into potable water and extra.

HOK can do all this stuff solely as a result of we’re a multidisciplinary agency. Our
specialists have numerous pursuits and specialties that feed into our broader
information of sustainability and wellness design. Yet regardless of our particular person
pursuits, all of us share a standard aim: To go away a greater world for future
generations.

TC: What has pushed your give attention to these points?

CV: Sustainability has all the time been a part of our agency’s DNA; however the drive to
increase our strategy and dedication to sustainability took on new urgency in 2020
with the appearance COVID-19, the homicide of George Floyd and a larger consciousness
of the environmental and social injustices that exist within the US and elsewhere.
2020 additionally noticed an growing variety of pure disasters related to local weather
change.

Given these calamities, we requested: ‘What can we do to make a difference?’ We
discovered that designing buildings and cities to be safer, more healthy and extra
equitable; and to assist reduce local weather change are options that actually transfer the
needle. Knowing that your work issues is an amazing motivator.

HOK utilized regenerative design rules to assist LG’s North American headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey improve the native ecosystem | Image credit score: HOK

TC: How has the sustainability panorama shifted previously 5 years?

EB: What has modified most lately is that so lots of our purchasers now
share comparable targets on the subject of sustainability, wellness and fairness. Their
ESG covenants require that they act rigorously — [and] their staff,
shareholders and boards demand it. It is now simpler for us to debate holistic
sustainability with our purchasers and have them really companion with us on
options. This is very gratifying. We are also having comparable
collaboration with our distributors and suppliers. Companies like
Shaw are teaming with us to make sure the constructing
supplies we use are cleaner, more healthy and extra recyclable, reusable and
round.

TC: What challenges have you ever confronted alongside the way in which?

EB: Designing areas that promote the wellbeing of individuals and the planet can
be difficult. Project stakeholders can have conflicting concepts about how greatest
to implement wholesome and sustainable design. A myriad of certification techniques
additionally makes it troublesome to simply examine the well being and environmental
properties of constructing supplies.

At a big agency like HOK, it was additionally a problem to make sure our lots of of
designers unfold throughout 26 world studios had the instruments, assets and coaching
essential to successfully design for well being, local weather change and social fairness. To
treatment this, we developed a mixed Finish Legend and Material Selection
Tracker. This instrument is accessible to all our designers through HOK’s intranet. It
makes it simpler for our groups to rapidly confirm the embodied carbon, inexperienced
chemistry and sustainable sourcing of the supplies they’re specifying. The
instrument additionally permits us to set targets and consider our outcomes throughout the agency when it
involves lowering embodied carbon and eliminating poisonous and non-sustainable
constructing supplies. This is only one instance of how we’re eliminating obstacles
on the subject of sustainability.

TC: What have been your keys to success?

CV: In a phrase: communication. Internally, we now have a gaggle of sustainability
champions and liaisons who characterize the present and subsequent technology of
sustainable designers. These teams are rising in experience and disseminating
data and initiatives all through all our places of work and into initiatives.
Outside of those two teams, we now have carried out steady coaching and
workshops; and we embed sustainability schooling into the onboarding of latest
workers.

From a management perspective, having our firmwide and studio-specific leaders providing full help — particularly in our materials-tracking initiative — has
made a dramatic distinction within the quantity and high quality of information we’re monitoring and
the early integration of sustainability into our initiatives. Beyond HOK, we now have
immediately engaged dozens of producers to share our initiatives and targets and
listened to their respective targets and challenges. This has streamlined our
communication with distributors and allowed us to collaborate on ways in which we are able to
enhance the material-selection course of to make our areas more healthy and extra
sustainable.

This article is a part of a sequence of articles recognizing the second slate of
organizations to be honored by Shaw’s sustain[HUMAN]ability®
Leadership Recognition Program. Each of the ten organizations chosen for
this 12 months’s recognition program is a frontrunner in its personal proper and provides
one thing from which we are able to all study placing folks on the coronary heart of
sustainability. To learn extra concerning the different organizations acknowledged by Shaw, visit the landing page for this blog series.